Disclaimer: As much as I would have loved this, I unfortunately, do NOT own 'The Dead Poets Society' - only the DVD of it. I do not own any of the script, basic idea for the movie, or any characters, whether mentioned in this story or not.

Now that THAT'S over with, I hope you enjoy this.

A Dead Poet Reborn

Clutching his pillow tightly to his chest, Knox Overstreet slowly sat up. He breathed in and out deeply, staring out his window in the dead of night.

It had been a matter of countless hours since everybody in the Overstreet household had gone to bed. Usually, being home for Christmas would have brought some happiness to Knox.

However, this year was different.

Neil died. Charlie got expelled. Mr. Keating came in, but then got fired, even though he had only been at Welton for the first semester. And Chris…

Knox gripped on his pillow tighter. His breath trembled. Chris.

Chris had stuck with Chet. Even after everything Knox did for her, everything they had done together… Chris went with Chet. That name, which could not even begin to describe the disgust but also envy which Knox, was wounded with, in the end.

Not being able to sleep while the rest of the world slumbered peacefully… left Knox with a very lonely feeling. With that, along with four highly important people in his life gone, Knox had never felt so alone. Although Knox could still write to Charlie, it would never have been the same as seeing him every day at school.

Knox quivered at the memories which flashed in his mind most vividly. He remembered them as though they had just happened yesterday. He remembered being woken up by Charlie first, with the news of Neil's death, tumbling clumsily from his lips, and how that same pattern repeated when he was to wake up the others. He remembered the gray, misty day when he and the rest of the DPS members stood in the midst of that snowy field near Welton, haunted by Neil's absence. He remembered the day Mr. Keating first arrived, leaving a mark on him for the rest of his, and his friends', lives. This academic year, the first time he had ever broken out of his cage; the first time, he had actually begun to really, and truly, live.

To live was to feel. To feel was to love. And to love… was to hurt. To love was to hurt, so painfully, yet at the same time, so sweetly.

Chris.

There she was again. With her beautiful, captivating face, framed with her silky blonde hair. With her bright eyes and her perfect smile glittering so flawlessly, that was to drive him to write countless poems and sonnets in the coming days after their first meeting. With that in mind, Knox's eyes fell onto the box just under his bedroom windowsill. He still kept those poems, and some of those photographs of her, in there.

But what was the use?

He had given her his heart, only to find that it was to end up shattered in a million pieces. Yet no matter how broken that heart was, Chris still had it. Yet she never gave him hers. Not in the way he did with his.

Knox inwardly groaned. He was stuck, with no direction, or motivation to go; stranded in the lonesome road leading to nowhere. Surely there had to be another way he could go. Or there must have been some way he could start again?

That box. With all those poems, and those pictures and photographs. All too suddenly, Knox found it. It came to him like a beacon of redemption.

He now knew what to do.

Knox swung his legs off the side of his bed, before leaning over and feeling for his socks from last night. He found them, before putting them on, then sliding his feet into his boots. Knox then stood up, carefully unhooking his black coat from the coat hanger, before putting it on over his pajamas. Knox pocketed his flashlight, then walked to the other side of his bed. After he lifted up the box, Knox tiptoed as carefully as he could, opening and closing his bedroom door silently. At the sudden creak of the floorboards, Knox flinched. But he continued anyway, until…

"Knox?"

Knox froze. Shit, he cursed as he turned around, only to find that he was facing one of his younger sisters. "Kate," he greeted.

"What are you doing?" she asked suspiciously.

"Goin' out for a walk. Can't sleep," Knox replied, as he turned around, about to make his way down the stairs.

"Can I come with you?" she asked, with hope in the undertone of her voice.

"No," he responded bluntly.

"Why not?"

"Because I said so. Now go back to bed," he ordered.

"What's in that box?" Kate asked as she tilted her head, gesturing to the box under one of Knox's arms.

Knox sighed vehemently. "That's none of your business. Kate, come on, I mean it. Go back to bed," he hissed agitatedly.

"No," Kate responded decisively. She walked up right behind Knox, before she folded her arms across her chest. "Not until you tell me what's going on and why you need to go for a walk outside in the middle of the night."

Knox paused. Certainly there was no way of trying to reason with his eleven-year-old sister. As the seconds of the night were ticking away, he was starting to feel very bad. Perhaps he should just give up and try and get some sleep – though in reality, that would have only led to what was happening just before. Which only meant, something had to be done. And if trying to explain something this serious to his youngest sister was to be part of this, in order to get on with what he was planning… so be it.

Though in all honesty, there simply was no way in putting this into words for any eleven-year-old, whether it was Kate or anyone else, to understand. Knox sighed once more, before turning to face Kate again. "Look, Kate. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I'm like this," Knox apologized sincerely. "But, right now, I can't really tell you what's going on. It's complicated and it's something that I just need to sort out by myself, alright?"

Kate nodded slowly in response. It was apparent how this didn't satisfy any of her curiosity, but she did not want to annoy her brother any more. It seemed to her that he had enough going on, without her or anyone making it worse.

Knox grinned a little. "Promise me that you won't tell mom or dad, or Liz?"

"Only if you promise me, something in return."

Knox frowned. "And… what's that?" he inquired carefully.

"Promise me that… that you'll tell me what this is all about when you get home. In the morning," she told him.

Knox passed the box from one arm to the other. "I'm afraid that… I won't be able to do that. I mean, not in the morning," he confessed truthfully, because frankly, he had no intentions of telling a single soul about this at home. However, he then took a breath, before adding. "But, I can promise that one day… I'll tell you everything about this. It may not be tomorrow, or next week, or even next year… But I promise, that one day, whenever that'll be, I will tell you everything you wanna know about this. I give you my word. From now."

Kate frowned, though then she nodded again. "Alright. Deal."

Knox smiled. "Okay then. Now go back to bed," he told her. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. "I love you."

"Love you too, Knox." Then with that, the girl had slipped back into her bedroom without another word.

Knox let out a sigh of relief, before turning around and descending the stairs, then exiting out the front door.

He walked, self-conscious about his breath and his shuffling footsteps being the only things he could hear in the midst of the nightly silence. He felt so suffocated, yet still continued walking, free to go through with what he was doing.

Knox could undoubtedly fell the bitter winter cold pierce through his skin, and down to the marrow of his bones. He halted. He wanted nothing more than to turn back, and crawl back into his cozy bed. Yet the reminder of this sleepless night was what kept him walking forward.

The world was hushed, decorated with icy roads, snow-blanketed roofs and colorful Christmas lights, as well as other decorations. It all looked beautiful – but left Knox feeling rejected and ugly, and heavily laden with sorrow.

Knox had eventually come to an exit out of his neighborhood, and into the town. He heard the church steeple clock strike a late hour, as he took a right turn. After what seemed like hours on end, Knox had finally reached the forest and the bridge over a river that was not completely frozen over. He made his way to the bridge, stopping half-way over the river. Putting the box down next to him, Knox leaned over, peering into the river… into his blurry reflection.

"What is this?" he whispered. What was this feeling that was consuming him?

"Who am I?" he murmured. He was certainly not the Knox Overstreet he knew. He was not the Knox Overstreet he used to be.

Then it came. The ache in his chest… the ache in his heart. That ache which was so familiar, yet at the same time, it never ceased to shock him to such an extreme. But then this was it.

Heartbreak was consuming him. Loneliness stood next to him, with his arm round Knox's shoulder, comforting him in the most paradoxical of ways.

"Why?" he then wondered.

Why did Cameron have to rat him and his friends out? Why did Neil have to kill himself? Why did Nolan have to fire Keating, who was to be the most irreplaceable role model in the history of 'Hellton'? And why… Why did Chris have to choose Chet?

Knox may have wondered these a thousand times. And he found that, he could have wondered all of this another thousand times, yet at the end of the day, the truth was this – it would get him nowhere. It would leave him there. If anything, it would only lead him to be consumed by an anomalous insanity. And that was the last thing he wanted.

Perhaps the episode of falling in love with Chris was nothing but a foolish fancy. Nothing, but an exciting, new phenomenon which he has never seen, nor experienced before, as a high school student at an all-boy's boarding school. Yet it was that phenomenon which set him ablaze. It was that experience which inspired him to pour out his passion using poetry and its immortal words.

The poetry, which he still kept, tucked away in that box.

Knox bent over, picking up the box and lifting the lid off of it, he took one last look at the folded pages and photographs within. He continued to shiver, for he cold was over-powering him. Though in spite of that, he tried to keep his breath calm and steady.

"Guess this means goodbye."

At that, Knox turned the box upside down, emptying the box of every content, and every feeling he had ever felt, particularly for Chris. Knox stared, watching every last bit of poetry and photographical evidence falling into the river. He observed how the paper quickly soaked, and how the ink and color of every word on paper became fluid and runny, mixing into the river, never to be read, seen or heard of again.

All of a sudden, something new unexpectedly engulfed Knox. He was no longer sad, yet this did not make him feel any better than he had been before. It was simply a different sensation. What was the word?

Numb.

Yes, that was the word. Then after that, came a few others. Hollow. Empty. Knox was then stunned, as he watched his work and memories floating down the river, under the bridge, then far away. Though even after that, Knox then realized… even after getting rid of that material evidence, they were still there. Deep within his mind and heart.

All too abruptly, before Knox was able to stop it, he let out a sob. His eyes filled with hot, stinging tears. He dropped his box by his side, collapsing down to his knees, crying. "Oh God, oh God, oh GOD!" he bawled. He didn't care who heard him. He didn't care who was there, or if he had gone crazy to be talking to himself, or God, or any being or person that may not have been there.

God only knew how long Knox had been kneeling on his knees, crying his heart out. Though eventually Knox looked up, gasping at the distant glint of light, breaking through the surface of the horizon. He gradually got up to his feet, staring at the faint sunrise through swollen eyes, and with tear-stained cheeks.

There it came again. That numb hollowness which he had newly become acquainted with.

Was feeling pain better than feeling nothing at all? Or was it so much worse?

Knox did not know. But the thing he did know for certain, was how he wanted no more of that pain. He wanted to feel no more hurt. No more abandonment, no more rejection.

Knox had not won any battles – yet had also, not lost any wars. The past still haunted him, yet at the same time, it was behind him. With this in mind, could Knox start over?

Knox extended his arms out, as though welcoming the new day. He had not forgotten his past – but he could welcome it as a source of inspiration; to make something beautiful, out of something so terribly ugly. The inspiration to create again; to feel again; to live again.

It was strange. Almost perverse. Yet it happened, in the most peculiar of ways.

Knox was born again.

Author's note: Okay, this is the first fanfic I have written and actually FINISHED, in aaages! So yeah, reads and reviews with feedback and other constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated. This is originally a one shot, but if you think I should continue this (if there's any way I can or could), then let me know, and I might think about something.